Quirk Publishing

So, I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and liked it, overall. It sounds like they're now also putting out Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters. This sounds interesting, but also sounds like there's going to be less Austen and more guest-writer. However, this has all put be in the mind to want to write a Quirk Classic novel. Specifically, I would like to rewrite Little Women or Anne of Green Gables or some other Children's Novel. Perhaps it would be worth putting together the query letter and starting the manuscript for a few chapters... hmmmmm......

Poem: Amber Dawn

Quick poem that I jotted down the other night:


Amber Dawn
Light shines out her eyes
and from her eyes and
when she opens her mouth
to speak
I can see it winking at me
from a great, cavernous depth
and I laugh
because she's swallowed the sun,
again!

Tweet me a Story

Yes!! I'm posting! Oh my god!
Sorry, but it's kind of exciting. I've been spending most of my time editing lately instead of writing or rewriting. But, I did enter the Tweet Me A Story contest and am allowed to post 3 "tweet" stories (max length of 140 characters). Personally, I abhor tweet/text talk and so decided that all of my stories would be slightly shorter to allow for proper grammar.

Here they are:
Story 1:
Lisa lovingly touched my frame. "Hold tight," she said. "You're about to get the crash course." I only hoped my bike would survive intact.

Story 2:
It took a lot of effort to not send the blue mug through the screen as Word decided to crash her laptop. "Damnit, the paper's already late!"

Story 3:
Sweaty palms. Racing heartbeat. I forgot to breathe. My knees went weak as I realized there was no way I wouldn't crash into the green semi.

ScriptFrenzy

This is the new kid-brother to NaNoWriMo. The goal: write a script in a month. Length requirement: 100 pages. Unlike in NaNo, however, this script is allowed to be the collaboration of two individuals. Therefore, a friend and I have taken on the challenge and will be writing out a script for the Gangs of Spelstad (Radio Drama). Maybe, if we get crazy, we'll even record it at some point!

Alexis

 Alexis: 150 Words

My hands hurt. She was tiny and mewling and confused and for some reason all I could think about was how sore my wrists were getting from supporting her head. 

"Shh. Shh. It's gonna be okay."

She just kept fussing. It was worse when I'd put her down. Alexis would take a moment and look up at me with big, watery-blue eyes. She always like somehow I'd just abandoned her. Then she'd open her little mouth and start crying. Great, big, fat tears would roll down her cheeks as she tried to make sense of being in a crib instead of in my arms.

So, my hands hurt and I keep holding the little girl, hoping she'll pass out eventually. Maybe her parents will come home soon and I can leave. Secretly, I'm also hoping she'll be sad to see me go, even if I'm giving her back to her mother.

Competitor

I can catch him! He's only two meters ahead of me. Give or take. Actually, I've never really been very good with distance. Oh hell, he's right there!
I hate the feeling of turning the cranks over, killing myself to reach the top of a hill or the end of a flat before someone else, and still ending second. It sucks, y'know?
"You still back there?"
"Shut up, Pat!"
"Just making sure. I'd hate to have lost you." Patrick threw a smarmy look over his shoulder at me.
He crested the climb first, of course. Pat was barely a second before me, but that second was enough.
We called a halt. We both needed a snack.
"Why do you make everything into a competition, Pat? It doesn't have to be, you know."
"Of course I know that." He grinned as we finished our bananas and clipped in. "But you don't."

Moira (Wedding Photography)

This is the first of the drabbles I'm going to write. I'll write at least 1/day for the next week.

150-Words
---

The camera hung heavily around Moira's neck. Incredible how something that seems so light becomes almost unbearable after four hours of ceremony and post-nuptual celebration. Did the guests have nothing better to do than get drunk and slur their way through half-hearted speeches?

A couple of bridesmaids walked past with the toddler flower-girl asleep against the taller one. The brunette.
"Smile!" Moira called to them.
The two young women gave exhausted grins and let her fire off a couple of snapshots.
"Thanks. That's adorable. I'm sure the bride'll appreciate it once she can feel her feet again."
The bride's shoes had been a point of amusement for Moira. Why did women subject themselves to the demonic torture devices that masqueraded as high fashion? Stilettos made no sense.

"Thanks, photographer. You've been great." The bride was still glowing.
So plastered she couldn't even remember my name. Why do I do this?

Lazy About Updating

Just like it says. Mostly, this is because my life has become inordinately busy lately. See, I have your regular 40-hour/week job. Then, after that, I have a side/home business as a Licensed Massage Therapist working out of my home and do anywhere from 3-6 massages in a week (that's a good number of my evenings and a chunk of my weekend gone), then, amazingly enough, I try to have a little bit of a life. Sadly, this has not left a lot of time lately for writing. But, I'm trying.

The problem with "trying" is that what I'm doing it working on a full edit of last year's NaNoWriMo (Crystalline) and then a complete rewrite of the book from the year before (A Hero for Iolia). These are things I can't put here, because they are books I'm going to try to have published eventually. On top of that, we're looking at less than two weeks before the beginning of Script Frenzy and my simply (and greedy) desire to get a little sleep.

Next year, I am hopefully going to have a much calmer life starting in the fall. My partner and I are planning to move to Taiwan if we can manage it to teach English at a school there through a program called Hess. This will give me a lot of time to get back to some writing as well as a lot of fuel for the imagination (hopefully).

I was thinking of maybe doing a "drabble" challenge (100 or 150 word "stories"), in which I write a drabble every day for a week. Afterward, I might try to write at least 3/week. Anyone interested in taking part with me? It's a different way to write that I used to do a lot and really enjoyed. It was a good way to get some story nuggets created that I could draw on or open up later...

Un-Mused

Writing lately just hasn't been happening. I'm stalled on Iolia and it's the project that needs to be done the fastest. I was hoping to have the draft done by now and I'm barely a few chapters into the piece. What I really need to do is just sit down and set aside the time and make myself do it. I'm so good at that during November, why can't I do it other times?

In other news, I'm definitely going to be doing Script Frenzy this year for the first time. I'm not a script writer, but we'll see what we can do. A friend of mine and I are splitting it and we'll write the script for a radio drama together. Should be nice... I hope.

Still debating doing Spelstad as a series of short stories online. Perhaps here as a medium or perhaps elsewhere. If I want to, though, I have to go back and do some serious story outlining. Ugh... I hate rereading work.

A Hero for Iolia

I am sitting in my local bagel shop editing/rewriting A Hero for Iolia.

Thoughts while editing...

1. I'm not entirely sure when, but my characters are slowly becoming tied to real-world cultures. Paka is somewhat Eastern European (I have tried to express her accent as being somewhere around Russia). Safiri seems to be becoming rather English as time goes on, too. I'm not sure it fits his character, but since it's a rewrite, I'm not sure he has a character at the moment.
   
2. I've finally reached the point where my rewrite can slide into the original story and I can start using previously-written scenes. It's about time, because I need to get my butt moving on this. I still have another full-edit to do when this rewrite is done. Perhaps I will share the first rough rewrite with friends to get opinions before an edit session.
3. Finally! Tashi has some kind of emotional connection somewhere. Maybe she really can be a sympathetic character.

House of Atreus

In 2006, I wrote a NaNoWriMo that was loosely based on the Iliad. Yes, brilliant me. Somehow, I failed to take into account that writing a story that covered the Iliad, the Trojan Women, and the play cycle of the Oresteia wasn't really going to fit into the box of 50,000 words. I hit my word count for the month, but I don't think I ever actually go to a point where the war was finished. However, I really liked the book as it had started. It was focused specifically on Helen's sister Klytemnestra (my favorite character from the series thanks to a professor I had at University). 

The book was written with the assistance and allowance of a friend of mine who allowed me to appropriate his city, Spelstad, as a backdrop to this story. The battles were rewritten as turf wars in the city in a vaguely Chicago-esque gangster idea. Not new, but it was still fun and I loved how a few of the characters came to be.

As I've been working on editing A Hero for Iolia (2007's novel), I've been thinking more and more about House of Atreus and if I'm ever going to manage to do something with it. It was really the first NaNo that I wrote that I thought was worth anything and I've love to see it become more than just an abandoned footnote. I don't really know if it's ever going to be fit for publication, cliched as it is. So, I've thought about creating a blog to post it to and doing a chapter each week (or rarely a little more often) to see how the piece goes. I'd also put it on FictionPress. I like the story, but I would need to be several chapters into it with a very firm outline to do this. Is it worth it?

The Neophyte

I've had this idea for a companion novel to Iolia based on a side character I named Ki. This is a drabble (a story that is exactly 100 words) I wrote to build on that idea a tiny bit.

Not a Warrior
Ki's face was hard, set like stone. The child standing on her stoop was neither brave, nor strong, nor fierce. The SuiHo warriors never accepted those who could not meet their exacting standards of valor and courage.
"What is your name, child?"
"I am Palir."
"Why are you here?" This was, of course, the most important question.
"I have sought you out, because you are the only person who might be willing to train me."
"You're a scholar, not a warrior. Why would I do that?"
"Because you are a woman and they would not take you, either."
Little twerp.

NaNo Certificate

Here it is for all to marvel at!

Irene

A piece I wrote a while ago, but too short to do much of anything with.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Irene

"Of course. You can come in first thing in the morning, if that would be convenient."

The receptionist's voice was cool and orderly. Just the kind of woman who ought to be on the other side of the phone.

"Yes, thank you. That's just fine." She'd have to skip school. Thank goodness her handwriting looked so much like her mother's.

Irene looked around the small white room and shuddered. Her mother would kill her if she knew that she was there, what she was planning. Irene drew the aging mackintosh around her shoulders more tightly and shivered in the lack of cold.

Something about the room felt as though it ought to be cold; it felt wrong. Everything was too sterile. Too clean and white and shiny. It wasn’t anything like home.

Irene pulled her knees close to her chest and closed her eyes, trying not to cry. It was her own fault she was here alone. She hadn’t told anyone where she was going, at least not truthfully. Everyone thought she was at Elizabeth’s for the night for some kind of girls-only slumber party. She shivered again.

“Irene Pollard.” A friendly, soft voice called from the front desk.

Irene opened her eyes blearily and looked up. She unfolded her legs from the old couch they'd used to try to make the place seem more homey and walked up to the desk. She handed the woman the forms they’d asked her to fill out and was shown through to another white, sterile room. Why did they always paint them the same color? What was wrong with a warm, cozy orange or a cool, pale blue? Irene buried her face in her hands and shook her head.

The door opened and closed with a small click as a pair of shoes tapped smartly across the floor to where she sat. A hand reached out and touched her shoulder lightly. It was warm and probably soft and a voice to match asked her if she was okay.

Irene looked up to see soft brown curls tied back into a messy bun on a younger-than-she-expected woman, “You must be Irene. I’m Dr. Christenson.”

Irene nodded and let her legs hang normally off the side of the examining table in an attempt to recover some modicum of her own pride. “It’s very nice to meet you, Doctor.”

Dr. Christenson sat in a chair across from her. “So, let’s talk. It’s obvious why you’re here, at least physically. Do you want to tell me any more than that? Don’t feel pressured.” She smiled in what was supposed to be an encouraging manner.

Irene nodded again. “Yes. I mean, no. There’s really not that much to tell. We got sloppy, slipped up…” She knew her face was probably burning as red as a cherry lollipop.

“Are you here with anyone?”

“No."

“Irene, does anyone know you’re here?”

She shook her head and tried not to cry.

The doctor wrote something on a clipboard. “I’m going to need to examine you and we can set a date. You don't need to be scared.”

It felt like a long time lying there, insensible of what was going on around her. Her mind was clouded, fuzzy. There were too many voices in there for her to pay attention to any one of them. She wasn’t doing something wrong. This was alright. Her face burned a little more and she looked down at the doctor who was finishing up.

Irene answered questions without thinking, not really able to think. They set a date and time and she was out of the room before things got too claustrophobic. Before things got too real.

She sat at home that night, thinking and chewing her lips until they chapped. A knock echoed through her bedroom door. “Irene? Are you alright?” Her mother’s voice slid seemlessly through the pseudo-oak finishing.

“Yeah, Mom. I’m fine,” she called back.

The door opened slowly and a small, somewhat graying woman with callused hands and wiry red hair looked in at her. “Irene, I thought you were staying with Lizzie. Is something wrong? Did you two have a fight?”

Irene shook her head and looked out the window, letting her mother talk to her back. She wouldn’t tell her. She wouldn’t tell anyone. Things were going to go back to the way they'd been. Things would be good. They'd be normal again.

A week later, Irene left that over-white room, thanking Dr. Christenson once more. She didn’t quite have a spring in her step so much as the need to see Lizzie, talk to her. Irene needed to tell someone what had happened. Somewhere along the way Paul had proven that he wasn’t the one to tell. He wasn’t the fatherly kind; he wasn’t even the supportive boyfriend kind. She knew that she deserved better. The problem was that she didn’t think she could find it. Or, if she did, she didn’t think he’d want her. After all, look what she’d done to herself. She didn’t deserve better. Did she?

Iolia: Take Two

As of last night, I started my proper rewrite of A Hero for Iolia, last year's NaNoWriMo novel. I've completely redone and rewritten the introduction and have started on a new chapter one. The character of Tashi, my MC, is being completely overhauled and changed. I'm liking this.